Gwynn Raimondi, MA

A Blessing for Us All

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May we find peace, calm and presence within the chaos of life.

May we savor this moment, right now.

May we feel the sand gently cutting into the bottoms of our feet as the salt water washes the tops.

May we find our community, our village, our tribe. May our lives be filled with Our People, connecting deeply, finding both support and loving challenge, for growth, for blossoming.

May we each have lots of ink on our skin, declaring who we were and who we are.

May the Softness envelope us, wrapping us each in our own cocoon of security and love.

May we be overfilled with the softness, so that it pours out of us, into the world, rounding the rough edges of all we meet.

May we have candle light and slow, lingering kisses.

May we have bubbles and giggles and lit up eyes all around.

May we release and find sweet forgiveness.

May we express the Divine within.

May we hear the ocean waves crashing, feeling them pull us in deeper and surrounding our whole being, becoming one with the wave, surfing it, just our body, and the ocean.

May we each find good health and free our bodies of sickness.

May our families grow as we long them to, feeling the child growing within, holding the sweet newborn to our breast.

May we feel crazy good.

May we embrace this life, to have a smile spread across our whole body as we see the beauty surrounding us.

May we have sunlight and color filling our homes, our lives, right now.

May we have gorgeous beads around our necks, wrists, ankles and dangling from our ears, an expression of our creativity, our beauty.

May we embrace our femininity, the gentle softness that is our birthright, feeling it deep in our bones and know that we are Whole, Enough, Beautiful as we were born, as we are now.

May we be held and told it will all be okay, this rough spot isn’t forever, This Too Shall Pass.

May we feel passion, savor all of life, connect deeply and completely to our bodies and our souls.

May we release the trauma living within us, be brave and move into this deep healing.

May we dance the Sacred Dance, what that means to each of us, together and apart, in our time and space.

May our breath be taken away by the gorgeous beauty and generosity of others.

May we take other’s breath away, with our beauty and generosity.

May we blossom and open, release the tightness, the clenching, find our fluidity.

May we come together, individuals into the whole, growing and guiding and changing each other as the rebels we are, and in this coming together may we change the world.

Namaste.

Living in fear and resistance

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I was sitting at the spray park, talking with a friend as our children were splashing and laughing and exploring. She was sharing some realizations she’s had, part of her transformation journey and her words were pulled right from my soul. Her words were my own unspoken words, my own unacknowledged fears and fights. Her words were her own, of her personal struggle, and they spoke of the struggle of many of us.

The struggle of motherhood. The struggle of being a stay at home mom. The struggle of being a working mom (either outside of inside the home). The struggle of the role of motherhood not being valued by society, by our families and ultimately not being valued by ourselves.

I will not share my friend’s words. They are hers, her story, her journey. I will share what it stirred up in me. What I realized about myself and my own journey in motherhood. As both a “working mom” and a “stay at home mom” and the variations I’ve lived between the two for the last six plus years.

I longed for motherhood in a way I have never longed for anything else in my life. I wanted to be a mom. I wanted a house filled with children, my own and their friends. I wanted to bake cookies and pies and paint on canvases and our bodies and have kiddie pool parties and bar-b-ques with all the families we know. I wanted a life not very different from the life I have now. I dreamed of it, I longed for it with an aching I can’t truly describe.

The day our daughter was born was transformational. To say it was the happiest day of my life is honestly an understatement. I think there are no words for those first moments when we get to hold our child. OUR child. Whether the child came from our bodies or not, those first moments of connection are indescribable. There is joy mixed with terror. Tears pour out in release as we acknowledge everything is different, an acknowledgement that we had made mentally when we knew our child was going to enter our lives, but one that our body hadn’t fully accepted until that moment, when they are in our arms.

We don’t really know how our life is going to be different. We can’t imagine. Everyone can tell us how our lives will change, but until that child is in your life, you really have no fucking clue. And that, I believe is where resistance to this role I longed for, this life I dreamed of, steps in.

I do resist this life of mine. I feel frustration with motherhood. I feel less than because I’m “not contributing” to our household. I feel uninteresting because my focus day and most of the night is my girl and caring for her. I feel angry because the dishes and the laundry and the mess is never-ending.

The Truth is, I love my life now. I love that I get to spend most of my days with my girl, guiding her and being with her and watching her. I love that I can show my love of our family through cooking our meals, through lovingly washing and eventually folding and putting away our clothes. Showing love to our home and the beautiful people who live in it by organizing and vacuuming and every now and then even dusting. I love that I get so many ways, every day, to show the people who mean everything in the world to me just how much I love them.

And the Truth is, I feel shame that I love my life so much.

I was raised to have a career. I was raised that to have value and importance in a home, one must provide financially. I was raised that “women’s work” is uninteresting and boring and ultimately not useful. That being focused on being a mom means not living up to my “potential.” Raising children and maintaining a home shouldn’t be fulfilling and if it is, one is clearly “less than.”

What a bunch of bullshit.

I know it’s bullshit, these myths and stories that I was raised with, that so many of us were raised with. I know the value of raising our children and giving them a home that is safe and filled with love. I logically know all these things and even parts of my heart knows the Truth is in the value of our work as mothers. And yet…

Yet these myths and stories run deep.

These myths and stories have been distracting me without my conscious knowing. I’ve been allowing myself to work on my business or school when it is time for me to focused on my girl. The laptop comes out and I go into a zone, or I have my phone by my side and I constantly check it. Distraction after distraction taking me away from those beautiful moments with my girl, those beautiful moments that flutter away whether I am present in them or not.

These myths and stories have been fueling my anger without me being aware. I’ve been getting angrier and angrier at the dishes and laundry and being “the only one” who picks up and cleans  in our home (another myth and story of it’s own, another Untruth). I’ve been picking at my girl and my man, saying unkind words, allowing shame to enter our relationships, shame that is coming from me.

These myths and stories have been feeding my feelings of “less than” and unworthiness and taking me away from the present moment. I’ve been seeking ways to feel valuable, important, worthy. This seeking has lead to unkindness towards friends, family and myself. I have lashed out in ways that I am not proud and in ways that honestly probably no one has even noticed.

All of us have stories and myths that affect us in ways we aren’t consciously aware. These myths and stories drag us down and prevent us from growth and release and joy. These myths and stories feed on the negative emotions they produce, “proving” their “truth.” Once we become aware however, they start to lose power.

It’s the becoming aware that can be the trick, of course. The first step is being open to change, being open to growth, being open to acknowledging our own Truth and struggles when others share their vulnerability with us. Being open to your own vulnerability, to your own pain, to the Truth that you have hurt others in the past–knowingly or unknowingly.

After the talk with my friend on Tuesday so many things became clear–the fear and resistance I had been clinging too, that had been clinging to me. I released tears, acknowledged my own deep-seated fears, shared them with my husband and let him know this wasn’t something for him to fix, it was something for me to simply know, to share. And with the release, and the acknowledgments, space was opened. Space for patience. Space for love. Space for repair–with my friends, my family, myself.

Releasing these myths and stories from our hearts, creates much needed space for the joy, the peace, the beauty of our lives to enter. Releasing opens the space for us to ground, to center.

Being open to acknowledging the stories and myths, to seeing how they play out in our lives, is the first step to our release and growth. This is a huge step into vulnerability. It can be terrifying to do this work, work that puts us in a place of acknowledging the pain we have caused others, the pain that others have caused us. However the only way to release this pain is to move through it. We experience the pain every day, whether we know it or not–it’s not a matter of avoiding the pain, there is no way to avoid it. It is a matter of moving through it so that we can experience the beauty and joy and peace that is on the other side of it.

We cannot do this work alone. This is work that is done in community, in relationship with others. It is work that requires both guidance, support and honesty. If it weren’t for the conversation with my friend on Tuesday I would not have seen my own Truth in her words. If it weren’t for the safety of my relationship with my husband I would not have been able to acknowledge these myths and stories and release them through tears and words. If it weren’t for each of you, I would not have witnesses to my journey–sharing that you and I are not alone, that through our imperfections we are all in this together.

Community. I am called to gather community. I am called to guide others in this deep personal work. I am grateful for those in my life, who I guide and who guide me. Truly, we are all in this together.

 

 

This life now

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I’ve spent the last few days consumed by tears. Tears of frustration. Tears of disappointment.

Tears of grief.

Grieving a plan that refuses to come into fruition.

Grieving a dream of what my life would be like.

The Warrior in me rages against this grief. Fight! she screams. We have a battle plan, she insists.

I’m tired from the seemingly endless battles in this war against What Is. In these battles I have raged and fought against Truth and Reality for so many years now. I don’t have much fight left in me. I want peace. I want to Be.

To Be, I will need to walk away from this War, stop engaging in the battles. It’s time to release these thoughtfully constructed plans, these dreams, these expectations of what my life “should” look like and time to surrender wholly to what is. It is time to release what isn’t and allow what Is to be my Dream.

This release, this surrender will not come easily. I have held onto these plans, this dream, this vision of my life, for most of my adult years. This fight has consumed me and has prevented me from enjoying and being whole in what Is.

Many prayers will still be sent. I feel them in my heart, in my Soul, in my womb. I know the bargaining with the Universe is not quite over. This release, this surrender will be slow and at times over-whelming. I feel the Fight still strong within me. And yet, it is time. My longing for peace is becoming stronger than my longing for completed plans, accomplished dreams, plans and dreams that are clearly not meant to be.

Time to release the anger. Time to release the frustration. Time to release the blame.

Time to release the plans, the dream.

Time to Surrender to what Is.

Time to know in my bones, that this beautiful life of mine, that I have right now, is enough. In this beautiful life of mine, right now, I can be whole and happy.

I love this beautiful life of mine. As it is. Right now.

 

Acknowledging growth

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I have days, like many do I imagine, where I’m just plain tired. I’m tired of constantly growing and changing. I’m tired of shedding layers. I’m tired of putting time in practices that keep me centered and grounded. I’m tired of healing. I’m tired of doing.

Days that I’m just plain tired. Days where I know deep in my Soul how my practices benefit me and also know deep in my Soul that it is time to rest and replenish and give myself space to be where I am in those moments.

Then I also have days where my practices are effortless. Where I can snap myself out of a bad mood by simply taking in a slow, womb-deep breath and then slowly exhaling, releasing the frustration and fear and anxiety that was building up. Days where things that in the past would have sent me  in a fast and anxious downward spiral of fear and stress, bounce off me as “oh well. I guess I’ll do this instead.” The days where I hear the messages my body or the Universe is sending me, where I acknowledge those messages and react to them in self-loving and world-loving ways.

Days where, when I step back, I can see the fruition of all my practices. Days where I see the joy on people’s faces when they spend time with me. Days where I am able to deeply touch another soul and open to having that soul deeply touch me.

I had one of those second days on Friday. I was having a wonderful Skype session with a participant in one of my e-courses and at the 50 minute mark, my laptop shut itself down. Completely turned off. When I was mid-sentence. At first I thought we had lost power in the house, but then quickly realized that the lights were still on  in the room, the wireless router was still blinking at me. Weird, I thought. I restarted the laptop and reconnected with the person I was talking to.

My laptop shut down again, this time, in the middle of her sentence. What the hell, I said to the Universe and laughed. I reconnected a third time, and my laptop shut down again. I took a deep grounding breath. I slowly exhaled. I said, “I am listening” and restarted my laptop a fourth time. This fourth time, once I reconnected, I asked her if she had anything she had left to talk about. Miraculously my laptop hasn’t shut itself down since.

My observation of the technical difficulties, and my reaction, is that aaaaahhhhhhh. I have transformed. If this same sequence of events had happened one year ago, or even six months ago, I would have started to spin into panic. I would have spun into feelings of worthlessness and not-good-enoughness and told myself that age old story of how I can never do or get anything right.

That didn’t happen Friday. Friday I laughed. Friday, after the third shut-down I slowed down, grounded and rooted myself, and opened myself to listening. I released my own agenda and thoughts that I felt compelled to express. I listened. To the Universe, to my body, to my client.

I listened.

I have released so many of those stories of not being good enough, of never being able to do anything right, or not having worth or value. I have found myself in these last few years in ways I never thought possible. It’s been an amazing journey. I look forward to continuing it and excited to see what transformation I will notice in October or next May, or whenever it is the Universe feels I need to know and see and listen.

I will continue to transform in expected and unexpected ways. It will be terrifying and beautiful and exhilarating and calming. I can continue my practices, continue to release, continue to come into Being. The true beauty of this is, I never have to get it right. I can continue to be human, continue to make mistakes, and know, this is part of the journey, part of the practice, part of the transformation.

Lifetime practices. Always.

 

A Love Affair

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I’ve been clearing out our garage and in this process have been sorting through boxes of family memorabilia: photos, diplomas, report cards, letters, greeting cards. My grandmother, and then my mom, saved every single card she was ever given and after she and my grandfather were married saved every card he was ever given. I inherited these stacks and stacks of greeting cards and have been sorting through them, finding love notes and letters and viewing the love affair of Thomas Warren Goulette and Reta Fern Inman Goulette that extended over five decades.

There’s a depth to these Hallmark cards, a beauty of a love I witnessed as a child and young adult. My grandparents, while imperfect, were madly, deeply and truly in-love with each other their whole lives. They set the standard for me for what a marriage should be. My grandmother loved my grandfather, she cared for him and tended to him during his long battle with lung cancer and emphysema. She doted on him and the look in her eyes when she talked of him and to him was breath-taking. My grandfather loved my grandmother with a passion that can best be related by the story of his death: My grandfather had been dying, fighting cancer for over a year. The doctors had been saying that whole year that he only had a few months left and every time he lived past their prognosis they gave him another month, max. What the doctor’s didn’t know is that my grandfather had promised my grandmother he would live long enough for them to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. It was so important to my grandma to have that 50th anniversary, my grandfather knew this. He fought to stay alive and they celebrated it with him in a hospice bed in their living room. Two months later he passed away.

My grandfather did everything he could, always, to give my grandmother what she wanted. This came through in material things of course, and also in non-material things: how he lovingly collected walnuts from the walnut tree and cracked them (hundreds of them!) by hand every fall and set them out to dry so Grandma could use them in her baking; how he stood by her, holding and supporting her while she watched her daughter and granddaughter’s relationship fall to pieces; making sure that she took care of herself instead of always taking care of others.

My grandparents set the standard for romantic love. I wanted a love affair like theirs, one that would last the test of time. I wanted a partner who would be as devoted to me as my grandfather was to my grandmother, fighting back Death himself, to give her her heart’s desire.  I wanted to have a love that flowed so deep from my heart that people knew by the look on my face when I spoke of my husband how deep that love was. I wanted what they had.

I didn’t see their hard times, except in the last years when Death came knocking. I didn’t see them fight or argue. I didn’t see how hard it was for them to be parents or know of their struggles, financial and otherwise. I only knew they loved each other with a passion that couldn’t be measured or described.

And that in the end is what matters. Not the details of day to day living, but the eternal love we have for those we share those days with.

I’m blessed to share my life with a man who makes my heart sing, who makes me want to be a better person, who I enjoy staying up all night talking to and who I miss desperately when we are apart, even after our nearly two decades together. I am blessed that we have an amazing little girl together and that we have our daily struggles, as all families do, and at the end of the day we know that we love each other with a passion beyond measure.

I’m not reliving my grandparent’s love affair, theirs was in another time and place. Their love for each other was uniquely theirs and theirs alone.

I do have what they had though. Realizing this as I read birthday and anniversary cards from a time before I was born has been a beautiful, awesome, centering and humbling experience.

For all their flaws, and there were many, they showed me how to live passionately and deeply in-love. And in the end, I believe that maybe, that is all that matters: that we live each day passionately and deeply in love.

The mistakes we make, our flaws and  imperfections, at the end of lifetime or the end of a day, can be forgiven if we lived passionately and deeply in love, every moment. The details of their daily foibles don’t seem to matter or to make these people I knew and love, what I remember is their love: their love for each other, their love for our family. This love is what has guided me even when I didn’t know it, it has defined me in ways I have been unaware of or unable to fully comprehend.

It all boils down to love. Our love of those close to us. Our love of our lives. Of love for the world. Expressing our love for all to see, stepping into that vulnerability and not caring what the world thinks, because our love is so strong, so robust and beautiful, the world can’t truly hurt us.

Acknowledging this love has been a powerful gift over the past few days. I’ve wept, missing my mama and grandparents. Having questions and wanting to know the stories behind certain photos or letters and knowing these questions won’t be answered in this life. Coming to a place of acceptance that those details don’t really matter has been deeply personally profound. Releasing and opening, breathing in deeply the lessons they offer me over a decade after their deaths, has shown me how eternal love truly is. And that is a beautiful lesson to receive.

My grandparents on their 42nd wedding anniversary (February 14, 1990)
My grandparents on their 42nd wedding anniversary (February 14, 1990)